Adventures in fact-checking for students

Samar Island

Can you find an authoritative source that either confirms or denies the statistic in this tweet:

In 1901, US military killed 50,000 ppl in just 6 months, as part of a 'pacification' campaign on Samar island (Philippines). The US military was instructed to kill anyone over 10 years-old; the US burned down entire villages & moved thousands of ppl into concentration camps. pic.twitter.com/HRQPcvzasU

This activity will take some time, as to pull the right statistic you are going to need some of the background of the conflict.

When you have finished researching the conflict and various estimates of the number of Filipinos killed develop your own opinion as to the death toll.

As always, keep in mind that looking for the precise statistic is not meant to minimize events like these. In fact, if you want to contest this number think of how you might reply in a way that does not diminish the writer’s overall point about the cruelty of the event.

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IMPORTANT NOTE

This site contains prompts for lessons that are meant to be facilitated in a face to face session. The meaning and nature of an exercise can often not be determined by the prompt alone.